Seated Nude

Painted in 1919 and held at the Metropolitan Museum, this seated nude belongs to Bonnard's extensive series of intimate female figure works centred on Marthe. After his most Japonisme-influenced early work, Bonnard developed a sustained practice of painting Marthe in the private domestic spaces — bathroom, dressing room, bedroom — that became his central subjects from around 1910 onward. The seated nude without a specific environmental frame is less common than his bathtub or mirror works; here the figure is more openly displayed, the intimacy deriving from the informality of pose rather than environmental enclosure.

The nude figure is rendered with warm, light-saturated flesh tones against a more subdued background. The brushwork moves between descriptive passages on the figure and looser, more atmospheric handling of the surrounding space. Colour temperature shifts from warm flesh to cool shadow.